Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend Read Free Page B

24,
    Suffers Career-Ending Injury
    He thought about cutting out the article and posting it in the gas station with the other clippings about Mikey. But Ruth
     Tillman wouldn’t hear of any such thing.
    Michael’s grades barely slipped him into graduate school, but once he was accepted, it was straight, hard work. Brutal work—six
     years of it, including his dissertation. In Berkeley he grew a beard and fell in love for the first time. Her name was Nadia,
     she wore black stockings and long skirts and came from Philadelphia where her father was a union organizer. They lived together
     for two years in the sixties when Berkeley was becoming the center of all that counted, so they believed.
    Nadia joined the Peace Corps and thought Michael should do the same. “Give something back, Michael,” she said.
    He’d been offered a fellowship for doctoral study and wanted to take it. “I’ll give something back another way,” he told her.
    Michael shaved off his beard. Nadia packed and left. Disappointed, but not angry, and on to other things. “It’s probably better
     this way,” she told him. “You’re an only child, and from what you’ve said about your life, and from what it’s like living
     with you, I’m beginning to think only children are raised to be alone. At least you were.” She softened, looked at him. “It’s
     been good, Michael.”
    He smiled. “It
has
been good. I mean that, Nadia. You’ve taught me a lot about a lot of things. Stay in touch.” He kissed her good-bye, watched
     two years of his life roll away on a Greyhound, and walked to the Department of Economics, where he handed in his letter accepting
     the fellowship. He went back to his apartment and could still smell the scent of Nadia, looked at her posters of Lenin and
     Einstein and Twain on the wall. He missed her already, but she was right: he liked being alone and had been trained for it.
     Only children understand it ultimately will come to that, and they live a life practicing for the moments when it happens.

Three
    T he
Trivandrum Mail
slowed down, halted, arms passing fruit and tea through the windows in exchange for rupees. Mosquitoes passing through the
     windows in exchange for blood. Sweat running down the curl of his spine, down his chest and face, Michael Tillman stared again
     at the picture of Jellie Braden. People in the fields working rice, bullocks hauling loads of wood down country roads, birds
     flying alongside the train for a short distance and then veering off. Whistle far up ahead as the engine plowed past another
     village.
    A face looked over his shoulder. The man smiled and pointed at the photo of Jellie. “Very pretty. Nice lady?”
    Michael said she was very nice. The dam crumbled, everyone within a radius often feet immediately wanted to see the photo.
     They handled it carefully, passing it from one to the other and nodding, looking up at Michael and smiling.
    “Your lady?” one of them asked.
    He’d never thought of her that way and paused before answering. Then he grinned—“Maybe, I’m not sure“—while the train rolled
     on through the late afternoon and into a purple evening.
    Two hours into the ride a seat opened up. He started for it, then noticed the pregnant woman off to one side, the one he’d
     helped onto the train. He pointed to the seat. She nodded in thanks and sat down. Soon after he felt a tug on his sleeve.
     Two Indian men had jammed against each other, leaving a corner of their seat for Michael. He tossed his knapsack in the overhead
     rack and crouched on the space they’d created.
    Talk began, mostly sign language, but progress was made. The men were farmers going home from market. They asked simple questions
     and discovered Michael’s profession. Immediately he was honored in the way Indians honor teachers—respect, awe, gratitude.
     “The highest calling,” one man said in heavily accented English, and the others agreed, smiling and nodding. Maybe he’s right,